Chapter Two

Chapter Two

Constance’s POV

With the raiding party away, a rare calmness has come over the castle.

I often find myself eagerly awaiting their departure so I can let down my guard and just be. This place is the only home I have ever known. I grew up within these walls and every room, every portrait and piece of furniture is attached to a memory of my life before, though it feels less and less like my sanctuary as Halen continues to fill it with his experiments.

He says we are all one clan, the vampires he creates are family, and his creations will assure our safety and our place in the world. I know he believes every word he speaks, but I can not get a moments peace with them around. I am constantly on edge, waiting for one of them to go feral and kill the human pets Halen keeps around for us to feed upon.

He is adamant thst it will not happen again, but I have quickly learned that his belief in something doesn’t make it so.

The dining hall is my second favourite room, and as I walk around the twenty-four seat table, my fingers glide effortlessly over the highly polished back of chair after chair, making a little bumping sound.

When my mother was alive, this table would be filled with our nearest and dearest at every meal time. The wooden legs would groan and creak under the weight of the feasts the kitchens would turn out each and every day, and we would gather together to make merry and revel in one another’s company.

As a child, I used to come in here to hide when playing with my siblings and cousins. The embroidered linens hung over the edges of the table top and ended only inches from the floor. It was my favourite spot, and I felt safe and happy. That was life times ago. A time of innocence and peace. That carefree girl is long gone, and I miss her every day.

I look back to the door to be sure I am as alone as I feel, cradle my many heavy skirts in my arm and carefully kneel whilst holding onto a chair for balance, then I finally manage to lay down and slowly manoeuvre myself into my childhood happy place. Who needs this many skirts? It is almost impossible to move in any natural way, even for someone like me.

I take a moment to loosen the lacing of my bodice, then pull the stiff, boned plate from beneath the offending garment and take my first easy breath of the day. Fashion is not something I have any interest in anymore, but Halen insists this torturous breast plate ‘is going to be the height of fashion’ and that I ‘should be delighted to lead the forward movement amongst the females of the clan.’

Honestly, he isn’t satisfied with ruling over the land. He needs command of my wardrobe too. If he had his way, my only role would be as a decoration he could bring out to impress guests then put away behind glass until I am needed again.

It’s smaller under here than I remember. If I sit up I will surely hit my head. That is the theme of my life at the moment. Everything is growing smaller, the walls are closing in around me, and at times I feel like I can not draw breath. I had thought it was the breast plate, but I was fooling myself. Halen is suffocating me. The man who once lived and breathed to bring light into my life is now drawing the little life I have left right out of me.

My palms are spread on the wooden floor and I can feel the grain of the wood under my fingertips. My eyes are squeezed tightly closed, and if I listen hard enough, I can hear the memory of rushing footsteps heading right for me. I was never hard to find. Everyone knew this was my spot, and once they knew this, I would never win a game again.

I miss my old life every day, and I have no idea how many more days I have left in me. My family are all gone, returned to the earth, leaving nothing behind but the ghosts of memories to haunt me.

Halen says his curse is the inability to turn the witches and give his creations the gifts we have. He has missed the point entirely. The true curse is the endless loneliness. We are forced to watch the ones we love leave us, or never love at all to spare ourselves the inevitable pain.

I open my eyes and swipe away a lone tear. Self-pity isn’t going to change anything. My eyes quickly adjust to the darkness and I see something I had all but forgotten about.

In the wood of the underside of the table is an awkward, messy carving. Matteau had crawled under here with me one day and promised that he would always be by my side.

He was six years my senior and I must have only been eleven or twelve at the time, but we vowed to each other that when we were grown we would be wed.

He was already grown, and when I pointed this out to him all he said was that he would wait, he had only ever wanted me and I was always meant to be his.

His assurance that I would understand when the time came gave me hope of a future outside the confines of my father’s high walls.

Matteau had been at my side since my birth. His mother was my own mother’s closest friend. Even when the other boys teased him for it, he would not leave me alone to go and play in the woods or the river with them unless I was invited too. I loved having him around, he made me laugh and kept me company when my parents were busy with their duties.

That day, under this table, he pulled a small knife from his pocket and carved our initials into the wood, followed by the least beautiful, pointed heart I have ever seen. I loved it despite its awkward ugliness. It was not perfect, but it was real.

Matteau is gone now too, just like the rest of them. He was lost to me long before the curse, forced to move away with his family. He promised he would return when I came of age, and I waited for him to fulfil his vow, but he never returned. My heart broke for the loss of the life I had imagined with him.

By then, my mother had passed, and my father knew not what to do with a love sick daughter, so I was left to myself. The only person I had ever truly been comforted by was the cause of my pain, and I was lost in despair.

It had been almost a year since I turned eighteen, and I had given up on sitting at the dining hall window and looking out for any sign of Matteau coming over the horizon.

Then, one mid winter afternoon, I felt drawn to the chaise my father had placed there when I could not be convinced to move. I had never felt so drawn to that window, and my heart raced with the hoof beats of a thousand horses as I walked up to the gleaming panes of glass that overlooked the gardens and fields beyond.

It wasn’t Matteau who crested the hill in the distance but a caravan of horses, wagons, carts, and men.

Lydia and Glynnis had been worried about my return to the chaise, and the two of them sat in the dining hall to continue their needle work.

They thought they were clandestine in their motives, but Glynnis has never been able to speak anything but her mind and what she doesn’t say with words, her face gives away. She thought I was going to lose my senses and as she and Lydia were the only ones who could even begin to understand my loss, they believed they would be able to help me see reason if I began to unravel.

They told me years later that they thought I would end up locked away for my own safety, like an old woman whose mind has left her. Perhaps that might have been for the best, given the outcome of events that later unfolded.

Both of my cousins were older than I, and my aunt and uncle gave them the freedom to explore the world and live their lives. Not like me, I was kept here, safe and sound behind the castle walls.

They had both been courted by members of Matteau’s family, but for them, it was mere entertainment. When the family left, they all left, and Lydia and Glynnis were saddened by the departure of their admirers but they felt nothing like the depths of my feelings for Matteau or the devastation of his broken promise all those years later.

When I saw the first man come up over the hill on his glistening, black stallion, for only a heartbeat, I thought it might have been him. I gasped and pressed my face against the cold glass in a vain attempt to get a clearer look. It was definitely not him. Lydia and Glynnis were at my side in seconds, and their noses were pressed up against the window pain right next to mine.

The man who led the procession down the dirt road towards us was not like any man I had ever seen. The men in the town were woodworkers, smiths, tanners, and bakers. The farmers lived further away, right at the edge of town with their families, but they were all cut from a similar cloth.

Even from a distance, I could see the jagged, silver scars of battle that cut across his skin like the lines on a map. His hair was long and unkempt, his body large and solid with muscle. I remember wondering how these men, who had obviously travelled far, had managed to find enough food to sustain them on their journey.

Part of me was terrified they would stop here in Blackledge Creek. The other part was fighting my common sense and hoping they would break their journey here. I wanted to know more about these men, as intimidating as they appeared in their scant armour with numerous blades hanging from their waists, tucked into their boots, and lashed to their backs, I was intrigued by them and my innocence and naivety was obvious from the start.

The lusty looks of my cousins, either side of me, told me that I was not the only one to fall under their spell from the moment they arrived. As insane as it sounds, a spark of jealous possessiveness sparked inside me that day.

Lydia and Glynnis would have to find one of the others to amuse them because the one on the black stallion had caught more than just my eye. He piqued a curiosity within that had all but died until then, and I began to imagine I different life, one filled with the unknown.

Blackledge Creek was a small town at the time, but it was growing every year. My father’s land spanned over fifty thousand acres, and the bulk of it was left wild and natural with a few hamlets dotted up and down the river.

The vast majority of the population was here, living under the protection of my father and the castle. Now I realise that the outliers were not like the rest of us. There were small covens of witches and nomadic families like Matteau’s, who would either pass through or settle for a time before moving on.

I often wonder how much my father knew about these people. As a child, he would tell me stories of dark magic and beastly men, but they were fictitious tales, meant to feed my young imagination and keep me from wanting to explore the dangerous wilderness just outside the gates. Weren’t they?

Now I know the truth. The stories were not plucked out of thin air but based in reality. Had he known that witches lived on his land? Did he make magical deals with them for the safety and prosperity of his people? He lived longer than one might expect , and had Halen not killed him in a fit of blind rage, he might well have had many more years left in him.

Both of my parents were in good health their whole lives, as were the rest of our family and all of the towns folk. My mother’s death remains a mystery, but knowing what I do now, I am certain her disappearance was anything but natural.

Her body was never found, but it would have been impossible for her to survive in the wilderness alone. It was assumed and accepted that the wild wolves of Blackledge Woods were responsible for her demise.

Nightmares of what her last moments might have been like terrorised me for months after she vanished. In truth, I’m still visited by such terrors on occasion and wake up drenched in a cold sweat.

Our harvests were plentiful and the livestock thrived. I had always thought that was just how things were. I never saw or was told of droughts, disease, plagues or famine. I had lived my life in a rose tinted bubble, and when the bubble burst, I was not ready for the wickedness of the real world.

The day Halen and his men arrived, my father welcomed them in out of the snow. He had hoped that the wealthy travellers would bring opportunities of trade and bring about an expansion of Blackledge Creek. The gates were thrown open in much the same way as caution was thrown to the wind, and Halen played the part of the grateful guest right up until the night Hikura blew in.

I stood at my father’s side, dressed in my finest silk and lace, and watched in awe as horse drawn carts and wagons rolled through the gates in a seemingly endless procession of wealth and circumstance.

I fancied that he was a Lord from a faraway land and whispered excitedly with my cousins. Glynnis added to my fictional imaginings with details of picturesque stables filled with many more stunning obsidian stallions and contrasting pearl white mares.

Lydia chimed in with her own daydreams of jewels and trinkets, which glitter in the sun and adorn the women of their lands who were worshipped for their goddess like beauty. Lydia was always one to value material possessions and beauty above all else, but we never held it against her.

“Cease your twittering and stand up straight.” My father had scolded the three of us. We were embarrassing him and showing ourselves to be the clueless young women we were.

As a widower with a daughter of marrying age, I should have known that trade was not the only thing on his mind.

My brothers would be land owners, wealthy and looked after by their inheritance when my father died, but if I remained unwed, I would be a burden, reliant on the charity of my younger siblings However, should I bind myself in matrimony, I would inherit a larger share of the estate than both of my brothers combined.

My father’s reasoning was that young men have every opportunity to forge their way in the world. However, as a woman I would have only what was left to me, and even then, my husband would control my fortune.

When Halen arrived with wagons of gold, pottery, silks, and linens in colours I had never known to exist. My father assumed my inheritance would be of little consequence to someone in his position and that if I could win his heart, it would be real love, not greed, that led to our union.

“Lady Constance, are you in here?” A loud whisper bounces off the stone walls and makes it’s way into my little fortress under the table.

Evangeline is not the most discreet human I have met, but she has become my most valued friend and confident.

If Halen found out I have been secretly feeding her my blood, he would be livid. That is not why I do it, but I do find the idea of having a secret amusing.

I feed her as a precaution. If she is injured, she will heal, she will not age as quickly, and should she die, I will have a chance to bring her back to me.

Evangeline started her life here as my maid, an orphan of one of Halen’s cullings, but there is something about her that soothes me. I trust her with my existence, and she has proven her worth many times over in the five years she has been at my side.

I’m particularly fond of her ability to ply my husband with enough mead that all thoughts of intimacy leave his mind. Whether he can not perform or is so inebriated that he falls into a drunken slumber is inconsequential. All that matters is that I am spared the ritual humiliation and violent relations he has become accustomed to.

“I am here, Evangeline.” I sigh. Her footsteps echo as she steps inside, and the door whines as she closes it behind herself.

After taking a minute to gather my thoughts and lock them away in the back of my mind, I reach back above my head with both arms. Evangeline giggles and takes hold of my hands to pull me out of my hiding place, the same way she has done every time I retreat from this unending hell.